Coach Nutrition to the Rescue!

We live in a day where we rely on experts for just about everything. From life coaches to financial planners to couple's therapists to parenting coaches to potty training coaches...you name it, you can find an expert to guide you! And, don't forget old fashioned sports coaches!! Today I learned that to this illustrious group of experts we can now add nutritional coaches.

One the one hand, not a bad idea given the soaring rates of childhood obesity with parents unable to see the problem and get it under control easily. Given how complex family life has become, eating has become truly a challenge. To add insult to injury, everywhere you turn, there is another piece of "expert" advice: in print, online, on tv. You can't get away from it. So, clarity could be useful to help filter away all the background noise and find the worthwhile ideas.

On the other hand, I can't help but wonder if the addition of yet another expert is a sign of society not only spiraling out of control but in need of a time out. Think about it. If our lives have reached a point where we don't collectively know how to feed our kids, that deserves at least a moment of pause to regroup.

By the way, you may be wondering if the dietary coaching idea actually works. Well, this was actually studied and the results released this month in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. Turns out us parents do well with such coaching but the kids don't fare as well. So, this isn't necessarily the best strategy for family health or childhood obesity. And, points to childhood obesity requiring much more intervention than just tweaking a child's eating. This is important information, by the way, because many parents of overweight kids falsely think that healthy eating alone is the key to lowering the scale and have trouble understanding the important role of exercise.

Which brings me back to my spiraling out of control theory. Perhaps it is not so much that parents don't get the value of exercise, but that they can't add it to their overflowing plates. I have a theory that for every important piece of information we receive as parents a few other important "to dos" get potentially displaced as a result. There is only so much room in our databases, after all.

So, what started as a post on family nutrition guidance seems to have molted into something a bit different. Clearly we need to slow down and be sure we, the parents, are truly focusing on what is important in the day to day lives of our kids - nurturing, nutrition and exercise. The rest is honestly just fluff. Oh...one more thing. Don't let the fact that there are experts available convince you you need an expert. You are all amazingly capable...more than you know. So, before you hire any expert to do anything...hit the pause and regroup first. Things may look very different once you give your self a chance to unwind and get your feet back on solid ground.

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